Skip Renker
F.W. “Skip” Renker’s poems have appeared in Awakenings Review, Leaping Clear, Presence, and many other publications, as well as the Atlanta Review, Passages North, and Amethyst Review anthologies. He has a Pushcart nomination. His books are Sifting the Visible (Mayapple Press), Bearing the Cast (Saint Julian Press), and A Patient Hunger (Atmosphere Press). Skip has an MFA from Seattle Pacific University. He lives with his wife, Julia Fogarty, in the beautiful lakefront town of Petoskey, Michigan.
Waiting Room
“When” is the word in hospital
waiting rooms, even in the dreams
of men and women who slump
down in their chairs, softly snoring.
High-mounted television sets tune
to the Weather Channel, or HGTV,
where house rehabilitators show us
that anything can be salvaged,
made over, except maybe ourselves
or the person we are waiting for.
We wonder when the room’s door
will swing open; the orderlies or nurses
wear masks or mask-like faces, call out
a name, beckon, sometimes place
a hand on the small of a back, lightly,
as if propelling could ever be gentle.
“When” becomes “Now,” this slow-guided
journey down the brightly-lit hallway while
the body floods with anxiety.
There are pictures on the walls
of the waiting room, lakes and landscapes
intended to soothe, though at night
they hang in the dark with no one to look
their way or ignore them. They await
the incoming light of the morning,
when new people arrive, navigate toward
empty chairs, pull out cellphones, pray,
doze, gaze into space, and the room
once again becomes a womb
for anguish, grief, or good fortune.
